Her theory is that the Christie administration targeted Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D), the state Senate Democratic leader, for political retribution — not, as has been alleged, the mayor of Fort Lee.

Here's the gist of her theory:

In 2010, Christie took the unprecedented step of declining to reappoint a sitting justice to the New Jersey Supreme Court. He was the first governor to do so since the current State Constitution was adopted more than 60 years before. State Senate Democrats responded by rejecting every subsequent Christie nominee put forward.

On Aug. 12, 2013, Christie made another rather stunning move. He decided not to nominate Justice Helen Hoens for a lifetime appointment, despite praising her judicial record. He did this, he said, because Democrats had promised to wage a war over her appointment. In a press conference that day, he reamed into state Senate Democrats, whom he said were preparing to tarnish her good reputation. "I was not going to let her loose to the animals," he said.

Weinberg, the Senate Democratic leader, represents the New Jersey district that encompasses Fort Lee.

But there are several problems with this theory.

There's no evidence in any of 20-plus pages of documents leaked so far of anything linked to Weinberg. There are four people whose emails and text messages are detailed in the documents — Kelly, Wildstein, Bill Stepien (Christie's former campaign manager), and Bill Baroni (the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Christie's top official at the Port Authority) — and they do not mention her.

Moreover, they often mention Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who did not endorse Christie for re-election last year — unlike many other Democratic municipal officials. And they refer to him in very negative, personal terms.

Baroni frequently referred to Sokolich as "the Serbian." When an early Wall Street Journal story came out about the lane closures, Stepien called Sokolich an "idiot." Wildstein responded that it was going to be a "tough November for this little Serbian." (Sokolich is actually Croatian, he told CNN.)

And Kelly thanked Wildstein for ignoring Sokolich's complaints about the traffic. On Sept. 9, Sokolich reached out to Baroni's office. Baroni got an email with the subject: "Phone call: Mayor Sokolich ... urgent matter of public safety in Fort Lee." Baroni forwarded the email to Wildstein, who sent it to Kelly.

"Did he call him back?" Kelly wrote.

"Radio silence. His name comes right after Mayor Fulop," Wildstein wrote back, a reference to Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, another municipal official reported to be on the outs with Christie.

"Ty," Kelly responded, the abbreviation for "thank you."

Weinberg has long been a political opponent of Christie — she was former Gov. Jon Corzine's running mate in 2009.

Moreover, in that angry press conference during which he lambasted state Senate Democrats, Christie specifically pointed the finger at state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, a Democrat from Union. Christie said that Lesniak had escalated the situation in the press by threatening to fight over Hoens' appointment.

"Given everything they’ve done before, and the very bold and arrogant announcement by Senator Lesniak, I had to take them at their word," Christie said then. "What the ramifications would be for that going forward, they should have thought about before opening their mouths."

One New Jersey Democrat with experience on multiple campaigns said that the theory was "interesting," but admitted that it didn't explain the personal attacks on Sokolich.

Here's the full Maddow segment (the relevant theory doesn't actually start until around the 11-minute mark):